This paper documents a significant
impact of climate variation on urbanization in Sub-Saharan
Africa, primarily in more arid countries. By lowering farm
incomes, reduced... Show More + moisture availability encourages migration
to nearby cities, while wetter conditions slow migration.
The paper also provides evidence for rural-urban income
links. In countries with a larger industrial base, reduced
moisture shrinks the agricultural sector and raises total
incomes in nearby cities. However, if local cities are
entirely dependent on servicing agriculture so their
fortunes move with those of agriculture, reduced moisture
tends to reduce local urban incomes. Finally, the paper
shows that climate induces employment changes within the
rural sector itself. Drier conditions induce a shift out of
farm activities, especially for women, into non-farm
activities, and especially out of the workforce. Overall,
these findings imply a strong link between climate and
urbanization in Africa. Show Less -

The consequences of climate change for
agriculture and food security in developing countries are of
serious concern. Due to their reliance on rain-fed
agriculture, both... Show More + as a source of income and consumption,
many low-income countries are considered to be the most
vulnerable to climate change. This paper estimates the
impact of climate change on food security in Tanzania.
Representative climate projections are used in calibrated
crop models to predict crop yield changes for 110 districts
in the country. The results are in turn imposed on a
highly-disaggregated, recursive dynamic economy-wide model
of Tanzania. The authors find that, relative to a
no-climate-change baseline and considering domestic
agricultural production as the principal channel of impact,
food security in Tanzania appears likely to deteriorate as a
consequence of climate change. The analysis points to a high
degree of diversity of outcomes (including some favorable
outcomes) across climate scenarios, sectors, and regions.
Noteworthy differences in impacts across households are also
present both by region and by income category. Show Less -

Given global heterogeneity in
climate-induced agricultural variability, Tanzania has the
potential to substantially increase its maize exports to
other countries. If... Show More + global maize production is lower than
usual due to supply shocks in major exporting regions,
Tanzania may be able to export more maize at higher prices,
even if it also experiences below-trend productivity.
Diverse destinations for exports can allow for enhanced
trading opportunities when negative supply shocks affect the
partners' usual import sources. Future climate
predictions suggest that some of Tanzania's trading
partners will experience severe dry conditions that may
reduce agricultural production in years when Tanzania is
only mildly affected. Tanzania could thus export grain to
countries as climate change increases the likelihood of
severe precipitation deficits in other countries while
simultaneously decreasing the likelihood of severe
precipitation deficits in Tanzania. Trade restrictions, like
export bans, prevent Tanzania from taking advantage of these
opportunities, foregoing significant economic benefits. Show Less -

Climate models generally indicate that
climate volatility may rise in the future, severely
affecting agricultural productivity through greater
frequency of yield-diminishing... Show More + climate extremes, such as
droughts. For Tanzania, where agricultural production is
sensitive to climate, changes in climate volatility could
have significant implications for poverty. This study
assesses the vulnerability of Tanzanias population to
poverty to changes in climate variability between the late
20th century and early this century. Future climate
scenarios with the largest increases in climate volatility
are projected to make Tanzanians increasingly vulnerable to
poverty through its impacts on the production of staple
grains, with as many as 90,000 additional people,
representing 0.26 percent of the population, entering
poverty in the median case. Extreme poverty-increasing
outcomes are also found to be greater in the future under
certain climate scenarios. In the 20th century, the greatest
predicted increase in poverty was equal to 880,000 people,
while in the 21st century, the highest possible poverty
increase was equal to 1.17 million people (approximately 3.4
percent of the population). The results suggest that the
potential impacts of changes in climate volatility and
climate extremes can be significant for poverty in
Sub-Saharan African countries like Tanzania. Show Less -

This paper describes an approach to
forecasting future climate at the local level using
historical weather station and satellite data and future
projections of climate... Show More + data from global climate models
(GCMs) that is easily understandable by policymakers and
planners. It describes an approach to synthesize the myriad
climate projections, often with conflicting messages, into
an easily-interpreted set of graphical displays that
summarizes the basic implications of the ensemble of
available climate models. The method described in the paper
can be applied to publicly-available data for any country
and for any number of climate models. It does not depend on
geographic scale and can be applied at the subnational,
national, or regional level. The paper illustrates the
results for future climate for Ethiopia using future climate
scenarios projects by 8 global climate models. The graphical
displays of nine possible future climate regimes (average
temperature, precipitation and their seasonal distribution)
for each grid-cell about 50km X 50 km). It also provides the
probability associated with each of the nine-climate regimes. Show Less -

Extreme weather events are known to have
serious consequences for human health and are predicted to
increase in frequency as a result of climate change. Africa
is one... Show More + of the regions that risks being most seriously
affected. This paper quantifies the impact of extreme
rainfall and temperature events on the incidence of
diarrhea, malnutrition and mortality in young children in
Sub-Saharan Africa. The panel data set is constructed from
Demographic and Health Surveys for 108 regions from 19
Sub-Saharan African countries between 1992 and 2001 and
climate data from the Africa Rainfall and Temperature
Evaluation System from 1980 to 2001. The results show that
both excess rainfall and extreme temperatures significantly
raise the incidence of diarrhea and weight-for-height
malnutrition among children under the age of three, but have
little impact on the long-term health indicators, including
height-for-age malnutrition and the under-five mortality
rate. The authors use the results to simulate the additional
health cost as a proportion of gross domestic product caused
by increased climate variability. The projected health cost
of increased diarrhea attributable to climate change in 2020
is in the range of 0.2 to 0.5 percent of gross domestic
product in Africa. Show Less -

Noting that South Africa may be one of
the few African countries that could contribute to
mitigating climate change, the authors explore the impact of
a carbon tax relative... Show More + to alternative energy taxes on
economic welfare. Using a disaggregate general-equilibrium
model of the South African economy, they capture the
structural characteristics of the energy sector, linking a
supply mix that is heavily skewed toward coal to energy use
by different sectors and hence their carbon content. The
authors consider a "pure" carbon tax as well as
various proxy taxes such as those on energy or
energy-intensive sectors like transport and basic metals,
all of which achieve the same level of carbon reduction. In
general, the more targeted the tax to carbon emissions, the
better the welfare results. If a carbon tax is feasible, it
will have the least marginal cost of abatement by a
substantial amount when compared to alternative tax
instruments. If a carbon tax is not feasible, a sales tax on
energy inputs is the next best option. Moreover, labor
market distortions such as labor market segmentation or
unemployment will likely dominate the welfare and equity
implications of a carbon tax for South Africa. This being
the case, if South Africa were able to remove some of the
distortions in the labor market, the cost of carbon taxation
would be negligible. In short, the discussion of carbon
taxation in South Africa can focus on considerations other
than the economic welfare costs, which are likely to be
quite low. Show Less -

The study develops a new method to
measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture called
the Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) Model. A multinomial logit is
estimated... Show More + to predict the probability of each AEZ in each
district. The average percentage of cropland and average
crop net revenue are calculated for each AEZ. Then an
estimate of the amount of cropland in Africa and where it is
located is provided. Using current conditions, the model
calculates baseline values of cropland and crop net revenue,
and estimates the future impact of climate change using two
scenarios-harsh and mild. Total cropland does not change
much across the two climate scenarios. However, the
predicted change in African crop revenue ranges from a loss
of 14 percent in the mild climate scenario to 30 percent in
the harsher climate scenario. The analysis reveals that the
greatest harm from climate change is that it will shift
farms from high to low productive AEZs. The approach not
only identifies the aggregate impacts, but also indicates
where the impacts occur across Africa. The central region of
Africa is hurt the most, especially in the harsher climate
scenario. The Agro-Ecological Zone Model is a promising new
method for valuing the long-term impacts of climate change
on agriculture. Show Less -

Based on a literature review and expert
interviews, this paper analyzes the most important climate
impacts on development goals and explores relevant
institutions in... Show More + the context of mainstreaming climate
adaptation into development assistance in Mozambique.
Climate variability and change can significantly hinder
progress toward attaining the Millennium Development Goals
and poverty aggravates the country's climate
vulnerability. Because Mozambique is one of the major
recipients of official development assistance in the world,
there is a clear interest in ensuring that the risks of
climate impacts are incorporated into the country's
development investments. A screening of donor activities at
the sub-national level shows that a high share of
development assistance is invested in climate-sensitive
sectors, partly in areas that are particularly exposed to
droughts, floods, and cyclones. The authors find that
Mozambique has a supportive legislative environment and
donors have a high awareness of climate risks. However,
limited individual, organizational, networking, and
financial capacity constrain mainstreaming initiatives.
Given strong limitations at the national level, bilateral
and multilateral donors can play a key role in fostering
institutional capacity in Mozambique. Show Less -

Southern African institutions involved
in disaster management face two major new threats: the
HIV/AIDS pandemic (eroding organizational capacity and
increasing vulnerability... Show More + of the population), and climate
change (higher risk of extreme events and disasters).
Analyzing the combined effects of these two threats on six
disaster-related institutions in Malawi, the authors find
evidence of a growing gap between demand for their services
and capacity to satisfy that demand. HIV/AIDS leads to staff
attrition, high vacancy rates, absenteeism, increased
workload and other negative effects enhanced by human
resources policies and financial limitations. Many necessary
tasks cannot be carried out adequately with constraints such
as the 42 percent vacancy rate in the Department of Poverty
and Disaster Management Affairs, or the reduction of
rainfall stations operated by the Meteorological Service
from over 800 in 1988 to just 135 in 2006. The authors
highlight implications of declining organizational capacity
for climate change adaptation, and formulate recommendations. Show Less -

This analysis explores the potential
impact of climate change on the viability of the Malawi
weather insurance program making use of scenarios of climate
change-induced... Show More + variations in rainfall patterns. The analysis
is important from a methodological and policy perspective.
By combining catastrophe insurance modeling with climate
modeling, the methodology demonstrates the feasibility,
albeit with large uncertainties, of estimating the effects
of climate change on the near and long-term future of
microinsurance schemes serving the poor. By providing a
model-based estimate of the incremental role of climate
change, along with the associated uncertainties, this
methodology can quantitatively demonstrate the need for
financial assistance to protect micro-insurance pools
against climate-change induced insolvency. This is of major
concern to donors, nongovernmental organizations, and others
supporting these innovative systems; those actually at-risk;
and insurers. A quantitative estimate of the additional
burden that climate change imposes on weather insurance for
poor regions is of interest to organizations funding adaptation. Show Less -

This paper examines the distribution of
climate change impacts across the 16 agro-ecological zones
in Africa using data from the Food and Agriculture
Organization combined... Show More + with economic survey data from a
Global Environment Facility/World Bank project. Net revenue
per hectare of cropland is regressed on a set of climate,
soil, and socio-economic variables using different
econometric specifications "with" and
"without" country fixed effects. Country fixed
effects slightly reduce predicted future climate related
damage to agriculture. With a mild climate scenario, African
farmers gain income from climate change; with a more severe
scenario, they lose income. Some locations are more
affected than others. The analysis of agro-ecological zones
implies that the effects of climate change will vary across
Africa. For example, currently productive areas such as
dry/moist savannah are more vulnerable to climate change
while currently less productive agricultural zones such as
humid forest or sub-humid zones become more productive in
the future. The agro-ecological zone classification can
help explain the variation of impacts across the landscape. Show Less -

This paper quantifies how African
farmers have adapted their crop and irrigation decisions to
their farm's current agro-ecological zone. The results
indicate that farmers... Show More + carefully consider the climate and
other conditions of their farm when making these choices.
These results are then used to forecast how farmers might
change their irrigation and crop choice decisions if climate
changes. The model predicts African farmers would adopt
irrigation more often under a very hot and dry climate
scenario but less often with a mild and wet scenario.
However, farms in the deserts, lowland humid forest, or mid
elevation humid forest would reduce irrigation even in the
very hot and dry climate scenario. Area under fruits and
vegetables would increase Africa-wide with the very hot and
dry climate scenario, except in the lowland semi-arid
agro-ecological zone. Millet would increase overall under
the mild and wet scenario, but decline substantially in the
lowland dry savannah and lowland semi-arid agro-ecological
zones. Maize would be chosen less often across all the
agro-ecological zones under both climate scenarios. Wheat
would decrease across Africa. The authors recommend that
care must be taken to match adaptations to local conditions
because the optimal adaptation would depend on the
agro-ecological zone and the climate scenario. Show Less -

Using economic data from more than 8,500
household surveys across 10 African countries, this paper
examines whether the choice of farm type depends on the
climate and... Show More + agro-ecological zone of each farm. The paper
also studies how farm type choice varies across farmers in
each zone, using a multinomial logit choice model. Farmers
are observed to choose from one of the following five types
of farms: rainfed crop-only, irrigated crop-only, mixed
rainfed (crop and livestock), mixed irrigated, and
livestock-only farming. The authors compare current
decisions against future decisions as if the only change
were climate change. They focus on two climate scenarios
from existing climate models: the Canadian Climate Centre
scenario, which is hot and dry, and the Parallel Climate
Model scenario, which is mild and wet. The results indicate
that the change in farm types varies dramatically by climate
scenario but also by agro-ecological zone. Policy makers
must be careful to encourage the appropriate suite of
measures to promote the most adapted farm type to each location. Show Less -

This paper develops a Structural
Ricardian model to measure climate change impacts that
explicitly models the choice of farm type in African
agriculture. This two stage... Show More + model first estimates the type
of farm chosen and then the conditional incomes of each farm
type after removing selection biases. The results indicate
that increases in temperature encourage farmers to adopt
mixed farming and avoid specialized farms such as crop-only
or livestock-only farms. Increases in precipitation
encourage farmers to shift from irrigated to rainfed crops.
As temperatures increase, farm incomes from crop-only farms
or livestock-only farms fall whereas incomes from mixed
farms increase. With precipitation increases, farm incomes
from irrigated farms fall whereas incomes from rainfed farms
increase. Naturally, the Structural Ricardian model
predicts much smaller impacts than a model that holds farm
type fixed. With a hot dry climate scenario, the Structural
Ricardian model predicts that farm income will fall 50
percent but the fixed farm type model predicts farm incomes
will fall 75 percent. Show Less -

Policies to promote adaptation climate
risks often rely on the willing cooperation of the intended
beneficiaries. If these beneficiaries disagree with policy
makers... Show More + and programme managers about the need for adaptation,
or the effectiveness of the measures they are being asked to
undertake, then implementation of the policies will fail. A
case study of a resettlement programme in Mozambique shows
this to be the case. Farmers and policy-maker disagreed
about the seriousness of climate risks, and the potential
negative consequences of proposed adaptive measures. A
project to provide more information about climate change to
farmers did not change their beliefs. The results highlight
the need for active dialog across stakeholder groups, as a
necessary condition for formulating policies that can then
be successfully implemented. Show Less -

This study uses the Ricardian approach
to analyze the impact of climate change on Ethiopian
agriculture and to describe farmer adaptations to varying
environmental factors.... Show More + The study analyzes data from 11 of
the country's 18 agro-ecological zones, representing
more than 74 percent of the country, and survey of 1,000
farmers from 50 districts. Regressing of net revenue on
climate, household, and soil variables show that these
variables have a significant impact on the farmers' net
revenue per hectare.The study carries out a marginal impact
analysis of increasing temperature and changing
precipitation across the four seasons. In addition, it
examines the impact of uniform climate scenarios on
farmers' net revenue per hectare. Additionally, it
analyzes the net revenue impact of predicted climate
scenarios from three models for the years 2050 and 2100. In
general, the results indicate that increasing temperature
and decreasing precipitation are both damaging to Ethiopian
agriculture. Although the analysis did not incorporate the
carbon fertilization effect, the role of technology, or the
change in prices for the future, significant information for
policy-making can be extracted. Show Less -

This study examines the impact of
climate change on crop farming in Cameroon. The
country's economy is predominantly agrarian and
agriculture and the exploitation of... Show More + natural resources remain
the driving force for the country's economic
development. Fluctuations in national income are due not
merely to the decline in world demand for Cameroon's
traditional agricultural exports or to mistakes in economic
policy making, but also to the vagaries of the weather.
Based on a farm-level survey of more than 800 farms, the
study employs a Ricardian cross-sectional approach to
measure the relationship between climate and the net revenue
from crops. Net revenue is regressed on climate, water flow,
soil, and economic variables. Further, uniform scenarios
assume that only one aspect of climate changes and the
change is uniform across the whole country. The analysis
finds that net revenues fall as precipitation decreases or
temperatures increase across all the surveyed farms. The
study reaffirms that agriculture in Cameroon is often
limited by seasonality and the availability of moisture.
Although other physical factors, such as soil and relief,
have an important influence on agriculture, climate remains
the dominant influence on the variety of crops cultivated
and the types of agriculture practiced. Show Less -

This study examines the impact of
climate change on cropland in Africa. It is based on a
survey of more than 9,000 farmers in 11 countries: Burkina
Faso, Cameroon, Egypt,... Show More + Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger,
Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study uses
a Ricardian cross-sectional approach in which net revenue is
regressed on climate, water flow, soil, and economic
variables. The results show that net revenues fall as
precipitation falls or as temperatures warm across all the
surveyed farms. In addition to examining all farms together,
the study examined dryland and irrigated farms separately.
Dryland farms are especially climate sensitive. Irrigated
farms have a positive immediate response to warming because
they are located in relatively cool parts of Africa. The
study also examined some simple climate scenarios to see how
Africa would respond to climate change. These uniform
scenarios assume that only one aspect of climate changes and
the change is uniform across all of Africa. In addition, the
study examined three climate change scenarios from
Atmospheric Oceanic General Circulation Models. These
scenarios predicted changes in climate in each country over
time. Not all countries are equally vulnerable to climate
change. First, the climate scenarios predict different
temperature and precipitation changes in each country.
Second, it is also important whether a country is already
hot and dry. Third, the extent to which farms are irrigated
is also important. Show Less -

This paper uses the Ricardian approach
to examine how farmers in 11 countries in Africa have
adapted to existing climatic conditions. It then estimates
the effects of... Show More + predicted changes in climate while accounting
for whatever farmer adaptation might occur. This study
differs from earlier ones by using farmers' own
perceptions of the value of their land. Previous research,
by contrast, has relied on either observed sale prices or
net revenues, sometimes aggregated over geographically large
tracts of terrain. The study also makes use of high
resolution data describing soil quality and runoff.
Furthermore, it tackles the challenges involved in modeling
the effect of climate on agriculture in a study that
includes countries in the northern and southern hemispheres,
as well as the tropics. The study confirms that African
agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Even with perfect adaptation, regional climate change by
2050 is predicted to entail production losses of 19.9
percent for Burkina Faso and 30.5 percent for Niger. By
contrast, countries such as Ethiopia and South Africa are
hardly affected at all, suffering productivity losses of
only 1.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively. The study also
confirms the importance of water supplies as measured by
runoff, which, being affected by both temperature and
precipitation, may itself be highly sensitive to climate change. Show Less -